


Deeper Wells

by Leidolette



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fake Marriage, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 21:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17857640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: Lady Silence is too sick to stay in the Arctic, but too much herself to leave.





	Deeper Wells

In the year 1845, a man who called himself Cornelius Hickey died of consumption and was buried on Beechey Island. The ship he served on continued its voyage to the Arctic one man lighter. There were no other significant changes. 

(Except there were.)

* * *

What remained of the crew were walking skeletons by the time they reached Fury Beach. Even Lady Silence, Mr. Goodsir's privately-held image of good health, was ground down. Their numbers had been reduced to less than half of the men that had left the ships.

And, still, it was only with a great deal of luck they arrived at all. There had been an unusual amount of game on the trail, and Lady Silence had encouraged the consumption of the animals' raw and steaming organs, which helped ease the ravages of scurvy. As the summer dragged on, she brought back the occasional handful of sour berries from the stunted shrubs that grew in the lees of hills that put some life back into the sicker men. Why Lady Silence made this terrible journey with them, Goodsir could not say, and the Lady herself gave no indication of her reasons through the long months. However, of the creature, they had seen neither hide nor hair since the first couple weeks after abandoning the ships.

The remains of Somerset House and the cache of food was there at Fury Beach, as promised, like the domain of heaven was promised to the faithful. The whaling ship that the ragged forenoon watch spotted and signaled two weeks later were god's angelic messengers.

The sight that the starving survivors of the Franklin Expedition must have presented to the whaling crew of the _Brunswick_ was surely less than divine. Still, they pulled into the shallows and rowed a dinghy to shore laden with provisions, and they dealt fair well with the sight of men weeping openly at their arrival as well.

But what was salvation for the men was disaster for Lady Silence. 

Not two full days after encountering the whalers, the color began to rise high in Silence's cheeks. When Goodsir felt her forehead and about her face, she was excessively warm. Soon she could not keep food down. The next morning found her glassy-eyed and feverish in her sleeping furs.

Before this, Mr. Goodsir would have believed that he'd exhausted his capacity for misery. But, of course, there was always room for more, and the deep wells of grief that yawned in front of Goodsir as he attended Lady Silence's bedside were a threat to whatever small spark of his essential self that had survived this journey. 

Scenarios churned in Goodsir's exhausted mind. The whaling ship was setting sail today. It had to -- the weather was turning, winter was fast approaching, and the ship must find its way back to shipping channels soon for its own safety. Even if the realities of the sea weren't such pressing issues, he doubted that he would find much support for delay from men desperate to return to England. 

It was clear that Lady Silence could not be left to recover on her own -- she was far too ill. Additionally, Mr. Goodsir could not remain here to nurse her. The _Brunswick_ , now supporting near three dozen more men than its suppliers were expecting, could not leave the two of them any meaningful amount of food. Nor was Goodsir skilled enough in hunting and fishing provide for himself and a sick dependent. And, still, there was the ever-present threat of early winter weather. 

These thoughts swirled and chased themselves through Goodsir's mind as he changed the cold compress on Silence's forehead and tried to get her to take a little of the whalers' beef tea. 

"Lady,"�Goodsir said softly as he continued to hold her against him in a sitting position after she had managed to swallow precious little. "Lady, I have something to ask of you."

Her eyes rolled towards him, not focusing on him or seemingly anything else, then slipped away again, seeking out shapes and faces in the corners of the tent that only she could see. Her body was shaking with fever. Not since yesterday had she made any action of intentional communication. 

Mr. Goodsir spent several more breaths with Lady Silence coal-hot in his arms before he eased her back down and tucked her in again. Then he rose as slowly as an octogenarian on his aching knees to find Captain Crozier. 

In a camp this size, the search was not difficult. Captain Crozier was at the center of activity on the beach, overseeing the packing of their few supplies for travel on the _Brunswick_. A group of a few dozen starving and poisoned men, plus a few whalers, couldn't manage much hustle and bustle, but the promise of the voyage home managed to bring out the last drops of energy from the crew's reserves. 

"Captain?" Mr. Goodsir's voice croaked out when he was at Crozier's side.

"What can I do for you this morning, Mr. Goodsir?" Crozier's lined and newly-gaunt face turned towards him.

"May I speak to you? Ah, perhaps in private, please?" Goodsir said quietly, inclining his head to a nearby tent.

Crozier acquiesced. "Mr. Goodsir, you have a rare talent," he said with the barest hint of jest in his voice when the tent flap had closed behind them. "Most men would find that after three years elbow-to-elbow on a ship, and four months of a grueling march, they would few secrets left to keep from their fellows. What is the matter?"

"Lady Silence is... very ill."

Crozier inclined his head, face serious. He already knew, naturally, and was expecting to hear the worst. These last three years had not trained a man among them to hope for good news. 

"It is the influenza, I believe," Goodsir said.

"Will she live?"

"...I don't know."

There was a moment of silence where there was only the clatter of crates outside and each man's own private thoughts.

"But, no matter the outcome," Goodsir went on, "she will need nursing. She must board the _Brunswick_ to have any chance at survival."

Captain Crozier acknowledged the truth of this, but then said: "I cannot say that the _Brunswick_ will be pleased to have another mouth to feed. And an Eskimeaux woman, at that."

This was it. Now was the time for the meat of Goodsir's request. "Will you say you've married married us? Secretly, before we left the ships? The _Brunswick_ will take her then."

"And what does Lady Silence say to this scheme?"

"She is not lucid."

The captain closed his eyes and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "I feel I'm doing her a great disservice."

Goodsir's heart sank, because part of him felt that way too, and he did not like to hear those feelings echoed. But what else could be done?

Captain Crozier waived his hand in a curt motion and made a decision, another in a long line that affected the people who placed their trust in him, and that they would all have to live with, for good or for ill. "Fine. You are married and have been man and wife these last five months. I will vouch for it on inquiry, and say that the record of it was lost in travel."

Goodsir closed his eyes and let out the breath he'd been holding. "Thank you, Captain," he said.

Captain Crozier nodded, like he wasn't certain if what he'd just done truly was a favor, and went back outside to direct the loading.

* * *

Goodsir soon learned that there would be no need to pretend on the part of Lady Silence, if she woke. If he said she was his wife, she was. Or, close enough to it to satisfy what passed for proper conduct among the whalers. One seaman of the _Brunswick_ even laughed when Goodsir requested to be berthed with Lady Silence, as both her husband and her doctor. "Well, then, you and I are brothers, Mr. Goodsir," the man had said with a wink. "I have an Esquimaux 'wife' too -- just don't tell the missus back in St. John's!"

Fortunately, the _Brunswick_ captain chose that moment to gallantly step in and offer his cabin to the lady (and, by extension, Goodsir) for the sake of her privacy on a boat that was about to be pushed far beyond its usual capacity, and Goodsir was spared the inevitable beating that would have resulted from throwing a punch at the seaman while weak as a kitten from scurvy.

* * *

Two days after after the _Brunswick_ set sail, Goodsir returned to the cabin he shared with Lady Silence and immediately felt the weight of her gaze upon him. She was sitting up in bed -- more than she'd been able to do on her own since first falling to the sickness. Goodsir's heart skipped a beat. 

"Oh, good lord, you're awake! How are you feeling?" Goodsir hastily set aside the two bowls of soup from the mess and rushed (and, after nearly a week of the _Brunswick's_ comparatively good food and several days of rest, he was able to get up to a moderate speed) towards her, reaching his hand out to ascertain her temperature for the hundredth time since she fell ill. The beginnings of a smile were already starting to crease his pale, tired face.

But Silence pushed his hands away, and he stopped, confused. She still appeared flushed and clammy, but her gaze was now as sharp as it had ever been. She gestured at the cabin surrounding her, clearly distressed. She violently pointed at the porthole displaying the icy sea outside. 

"Oh. Yes. We are in a rescue ship heading out to sea," Goodsir said. "Do you remember? The whalers--"

Lady Silence had never attempted to speak with the stunted, leftover remnant of her tongue. But now, for the first time in three-quarters of a year, he heard her voice.

"Please, take me back," she said in a mish-mash of Inuktitut and English. The words were slurred and misshapen nearly beyond recognition. It was a testament to the effort she put into forming the words that he could understand them at all. 

"I-I can't," he tried to explain desperately. "We've already set sail -- it's too perilous to turn around."

"I want to go home again. Please, you kept it from my father, but I want to live and die on the ice."

Goodsir's mouth opened and closed several times like a dying fish. When he didn't respond, Silence spoke no more, and turned her face towards the wall.

Oh. 

How had he already forgotten that there was always room for more misery?

**Author's Note:**

> AKA: When fake-married goes wrong


End file.
